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I suddenly realised at the weekend that we haven’t really done any research on some of our new artists, so here’s what I got from Google last night… (It’s mainly for the curatorial essay, but I thought I’d post it just in case anyone else needs it!)

Looking more closely at the landscape – and especially the beaches – of Mauritius we see signs of a different reality, hidden behind Epinal’s picture postcard views (traditionalist, naive depiction). Private ownership of the shoreline is indirectly threatening the livelihood of the Creole inshore fishing population who have been banished from the seafront, now in the hands of the tourist industry.

The film set is almost perfect, with telecom masts disguised as coconut trees spread across the island. But behind the scene are endless walls, fencing in the tourists in their luxury hotels and making the sea an abstract, barely accessible landmark for the local Creoles. The beach is a policed, walled-in space, surrounded by barricades, a commodity to be bought and sold. The few remaining public beaches are narrow, rocky, often dangerous, with far from welcoming signs spelling out a clear message: “DANGER, NO SWIMMING”, “PRIVATE PROPERTY”, “FOR SALE”.

Economic interests based on short-term projections often dictate the decision to take over land and erect barriers, at the expense of the local population. I came away with two recurring images – the travelling stallholders selling their wares and the fishermen going back out to sea. They evoke a fragile existence, a form of resistance requiring a mobility which, though sometimes forced inspires certain energy, momentum, even hope.

The object of his work is the erasure of memory in a western world where the essential values seem to be speed, progress and technology. He seeks the sense of wonder, in a tension between attraction and repulsion, bringing his own interpretation to night-time photography and the use of light and dark/chiaroscuro. He is also interested in the remnants of France’s colonial past, investigating the friction between history and memory in the Outre-Mer project.

JR owns the biggest art gallery in the world. He exhibits freely in the streets of the world, catching the attention of people who are not the museum visitors. His work mixes Art and Act, talks about commitment, freedom, identity and limit.

After he found a camera in the Paris subway, he did a tour of European Street Art, tracking the people who communicate messages via the walls. Then, he started to work on the vertical limits, watching the people and the passage of life from the forbidden undergrounds and roofs of the capital.

JR creates “Pervasive Art” that spreads uninvited on the buildings of the slums around Paris, on the walls in the Middle-East, on the broken bridges in Africa or the favelas in Brazil. People who often live with the bare minimum discover something absolutely unnecessary. And they don’t just see it, they make it. Some elderly women become models for a day; some kids turn artists for a week. In that Art scene, there is no stage to separate the actors from the spectators.

After these local exhibitions, the images are transported to London, New York, Berlin or Amsterdam where people interpret them in the light of their own personal experience.

As he remains anonymous and doesn’t explain his huge full frame portraits of people making faces, JR leaves the space empty for an encounter between the subject/protagonist and the passer-by/interpreter.

…the work of French photographer Bruno Serralongue at Air de Paris. His large-scale photographs are from a series in progress, entitled “Calais” after a refugee camp in Pas-de-Calais, the closest point in France to England, closed down in 1992 by then-Minister of the Interior Nicholas Sarkozy. Despite the camp’s closing, refugees still flock to the town.

Serralongue’s pictures document this shadow world, showing a makeshift tent and trash in an idyllic French glade, isolated figures loitering by a highway as Mack trucks carrying containers rush by, or an abandoned trailer swathed in a Babel of graffiti, the whole scene bathed in an eerie purple-blue light. His images record the lives of people who are there but not there, and somehow even the figures whose presence his lens captures are floating in a no man’s land.

Two versions of the gallery floorplan, one blank and the other with where the pieces are going and a visitors route on…sorry about the handwriting, I really should have tried to make it a bit easier to read! x

Hey, I went through the brainstorm thing we’ve got for our concept over the weekend and did a bit of reading about some of the things we haven’t really looked into yet. Here are my notes…sorry about the handwriting, they’re not particularly easy to read! x

Here are the pages of research we did this week so that it is accessible for everyone in the next couple of weeks:

DENIS BEAUBOIS- In the event of Amnesia the city will recall, part 1 1996/7

OVERVIEW: In the event of Amnesia the city will recall explores the relationship between the individual and the metropolis. These works are not structured events for a traditional audience, they are questions proposed to the site. Open actions which rely on the surrounding dynamics to embellish them. The city as audience, collaborator and performer is emphasised in this piece.

WHAT HAPPENED: Twelve sites were selected around the city of Sydney where surveillance cameras are prominently placed. The locations were mapped out and the stage for “in the event of Amnesia …” was created. A pilgrimage was made to the sites daily for a period of three days. Upon arrival the performer attempted to engage with the electronic eye. The performers actions were directed to the camera which adopted the role of audience. No permission was sought for the use of these sites. The performer arrived unannounced and carried out his actions. Within this urban context there exists an interplay between what I have termed as the “primary and secondary audience”. The primary audience is a targeted audience, a person or congregation who is willing to observe and assess. For the “Amnesia” piece the primary audience was the surveillance camera (or those who monitor them). Their willingness to observe is not based upon the longing for entertainment. It is “order driven” and stems from a necessity to asses and monitor designated terrain. Imbued with a watchdog consciousness, the primary audience scans the field for suspects, clues and leads. Like many audiences it assesses the scene and attempts to pre-empt the plot. However this audience is extremely discerning, and ultimately by assessing and reacting to the event it also adopts the role of performer.

CONCEPT: When both parties (self & surveillance camera) become locked in performance the notion of audience is further expanded. The secondary audience exists because of the location of the action. The sites chosen were courtyards, walkways and thoroughfares. Locations of travel and transience. The secondary audience is a possible audience, a transient audience and an audience of chance. It is an autonomous audience who is self directed in its choice wether to stop and pay attention, or wether to ignore the event. It is also an audience entrenched in the glance as opposed to that of the gaze, quickly flying through the scene and capturing a “frame or snapshot” of the event.

SITE:
Within this metropolis the walls do not have ears but are equipped with eyes. The city must understand the movements of those who dwell within its domain. To successfully achieve this it must be capable of reading its inhabitants.What can be read can be controlled in theory. Yet the city’s eyes are not content following the narrative provided by its inhabitants. The city weaves its own text within the surface narrative. A paranoid fiction based on foresight.

Using the vehicle of suspicion to create a captive audience
The Surveillance camera as primary audience is selective in what it responds to. It is a preemptive technology relying on observation before the fact. To police the space a directive must be given, the model of the offender suggested, a profile created. In his book “the simulation of surveillance”, Bogard speaks of the constructed image of the potential offender as a self fulfilling prophecy. It is only a question of time before the suspect appears. He suggests that one could even argue that the suspect already exists before the crime. Largely based on records of past arrests, antisocial activity and criminological simulations, profiles function as preliminaries to surveillance. If one’s race, sex, clothes, movements matches the profile you are the target. This ideology provides ripe ground for the cultivation of an audience. Adopt the basis of their visual code, become a suspect and create a stage with a captive audience.

The profile does not fail or succeed, it guarantees an offender/ performer for the observer. This arrangement is reciprocal, and if viewed from the “model deviants” perspective, this dynamic provides an ever watchful eye in the guise of a highly critical audience. To willingly confess to the camera is to disempower it. For the camera is no longer in the position of inquisitor. Its discoveries are rendered impotent as they are no longer exclusive and thus powerful. For the camera exclusive knowledge is power. However when knowledge becomes public and open its uses as a tool of power are greatly diminished. The action of willingly giving the self to the system, by virtue of its simplicity, raises questions of a hidden agenda . The surface disappears, rendering the action enigmatic, illegible and therefore potentially subversive. A tactical ploy where simulated innocence points to a model deviant. By complying with the system one defies it.

In the event of Amnesia the city will recall… (Cleveland USA) is a continuation of the Amnesia project. This work explores the performative nature of observation. The act of doing and watching are interchangeable within this project, the theme of the witness as culprit is ever present enforcing the idea where the viewer cannot escape the status of accomplice. An exploration into the structure where the crowd confront itself. in the inescapable role of performer .

Denis Beaubois

1997

YO- YO GONTHIER

Looking more closely at the landscape – and especially the beaches – of Mauritius we see signs of a different reality, hidden behind Epinal’s picture postcard views.

Private ownership of the shoreline is indirectly threatening the livelihood of the Creole inshore fishing population who have been banished from the seafront, now in the hands of the tourist industry.

The film set is almost perfect, with telecom masts disguised as coconut trees spread across the island. But behind the scene are endless walls, fencing in the tourists in their luxury hotels and making the sea an abstract, barely accessible landmark for the local Creoles.

The beach is a policed, walled-in space, surrounded by barricades, a commodity to be bought and sold. The few remaining public beaches are narrow, rocky, often dangerous, with far from welcoming signs spelling out a clear message: “DANGER, NO SWIMMING”, “PRIVATE PROPERTY”, “FOR SALE”.

Economic interests based on short-term projections often dictate the decision to take over land and erect barriers, at the expense of the local population.

I came away with two recurring images – the traveling stallholders selling their wares and the fishermen going back out to sea. They evoke a fragile existence, a form of resistance requiring a mobility which, though sometimes forced inspires a certain energy, momentum, even hope.

Series resulting from a commission from the Parc de la Villette for the Kréyol Factory exhibition in April 2009.

A selection of this work is currently on display at the Encounters of Bamako 09.

– Born in Paris in 1970 into Algerian family, Kader Attia’s work is heavily influenced by his cultural heritage. It is rooted in the complex relations between the East and West and deals with many different subjects from the place of women in religion; the taboo relations between power, religion and art; to the phobias, frustrations and fantasies of the human being. Attia is unafraid of tackling questions of globalisation and religion and his work presents a sometimes darkly humorous and even cynical view of modern life. It exists at the meeting point between Western consumerism and an uprooted North African culture and addresses issues of community, diversity, belonging and exile. (http://dasartesplasticas.blogspot.com/2007_12_01_archive.html)